Iraq War Dominates Lieberman-Lamont Debate

By JENNIFER MEDINA and WILLIAM YARDLEY; Avi Salzman contributed reporting for this article.

Published: July 7, 2006

In their only scheduled debate, Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut questioned the credibility of his challenger in the Democratic primary, Ned Lamont, while Mr. Lamont called the senator a friend of the Bush administration as the two tangled sharply over the war in Iraq on Thursday night.

In the one-hour debate Mr. Lieberman attempted to distance himself from President Bush and asserted that Mr. Lamont, a cable television executive who has built his campaign around criticizing the war in Iraq, lacks the experience and political know-how to serve in the Senate.

The sharpest exchanges came during the first 15 minutes of the debate, which was televised by C-Span, as Mr. Lieberman persistently interrupted Mr. Lamont and insisted that he had taken six different positions on American policy in Iraq. Mr. Lamont, for his part, tried to hammer home the point that Mr. Lieberman had not stood up to President Bush and had tried to play down his support for the war.

''Ned, I'm not George Bush, so why don't you stop running against him and have the courage and honesty to run against me?'' Mr. Lieberman, who is seeking his fourth term in the Senate, said during his opening statement.

The Connecticut primary has become a flashpoint for tensions within the Democratic party, as anti-war activists and liberal bloggers from across the nation have flocked to Mr. Lamont's aid in hopes of punishing Mr. Lieberman for his centrist politics, particularly his strong and consistent support for the war in Iraq.

The debate came four days after Mr. Lieberman announced that he would begin to collect petitions and run as an independent in November if he loses the Democratic primary on Aug. 8, a sign to many Democrats that the race has become very tight.Mr. Lieberman behaved like a man fighting for his political life. He described himself as a loyal Democrat in the mold of John F. Kennedy and said his ability to ''reach across the partisan divide'' had helped him get things for Connecticut. He also aggressively attacked Mr. Lamont at every turn, including for votes he cast with Republicans in the 1980's as a member of the Greenwich board of selectmen.

But Mr. Lamont said he voted with the Republicans on ''potholes and stop signs.'' Addressing Mr. Lieberman, he said, ''You're compromising on questions of principles and things that are key to the Democratic Party and what we stand for.''

Yet even as both men sought to burnish their Democratic credentials -- Senator Lieberman talked of his days as a civil rights worker in Mississippi and Mr. Lamont boasted of volunteering in a public high school in Bridgeport -- the debate returned time and again to Iraq.

Mr. Lamont repeated what has become his mantra: that the United States is needlessly spending $250 million every day in Iraq.

''President Bush rushed us into this war -- he told us it would be easy, we'd be welcomed as liberators,'' Mr. Lamont said. ''And Senator Lieberman cheered on the president every step of the way when we should have been asking the tough questions.''

But Mr. Lieberman returned that charge with one of his own, saying that Mr. Lamont has changed his position on whether he wants a ''timeline'' or a ''deadline'' for troops to withdraw from Iraq. At one point, he pulled out a sheet of paper, which he said outlined Mr. Lamont's shifting opinion.

''A couple of weeks ago you took two different positions on the same day. You said you would have voted for John Kerry's amendment setting the deadline for withdrawal, then you said you would not have supported the amendment and your campaign manager said a third thing,'' he said. ''I still don't know what your position is.''

Mr. Lamont responded that he supported the amendment ''like the heart of the Democratic Party.''

''It's time for us to change course, time for us to start getting our front line troops out of harm's way,'' Mr. Lamont said, adding that he would push to withdraw troops within a year.

Turning to Mr. Lieberman, he said: ''You have an open-ended stay-the-course strategy.''

Mr. Lieberman quickly responded with a ''No way,'' then added later: ''That's absolutely untrue. I've said the sooner we get out the better, but if we get out too soon, it will be a disaster for the Iraqis and for us.''

Mr. Lieberman said that setting a deadline for withdrawal would be ''dumb.''

''I've been a Democrat all my life and I must say I laugh at Ned Lamont holding up party loyalty as a test of my candidacy,'' Mr. Lieberman said.

At the end of the debate, Mr. Lamont tried to criticize Mr. Lieberman for taking large campaign contributions from lobbyists and political interest groups. After Mr. Lieberman boasted of helping to send federal government money for Connecticut projects, Mr. Lamont said that money helps to ''corrupt the political process.''

But then Mr. Lamont suggested that Connecticut had not received enough of that federal money, saying that Alaska receives ten times more than Connecticut.

Mr. Lieberman shot back that Mr. Lamont, who has contributed more than $1 million of his own money to the campaign, was trying to obscure his own fortune to voters by declining to release his tax returns. Mr. Lamont is worth between $90 million to $300 million.